God of Tarot (27 page)

Actually, part of what she said related to him very directly. He had never seriously thought about his future. He was bound for life to the drug, and to the criminal distribution system, and he could escape that prison only at the expense of his memory. Was that what he really wanted in life? It didn’t matter; it was what he had. She, according to her story, had fled in time; for him it was too late. All he could do now was protect what he had—from her.

Yet he delayed in taking action, nagged by doubt, She was such a damned attractive girl, seeming so nice, representing the kind of life he would have chosen, had he been smart early. Like a fine racing car, styled right, with an engine to conjure with, capable of pushing a quarter mach 1 in heat, yet docile and comfortable when on idle. How could he kick her out without being
sure
. (And was she thinking: how could she arrest him as a mnem addict, without being
sure?)

“Your cult—I mean, your religious order—what; does it do? Is it like a commune or something?” (Where the women were shared among the men, and no person denied anything to any other? But surely he was dreaming!)

“The Holy Order of Vision is not really a religion,” she said, and it was evident that now she was on familiar ground. But of course she would have her story straight. “Anyone can join, from any religion, and the Order does not interfere. We try to promote the welfare of man and nature wherever we can. Many people come to us troubled in spirit, and for some the Tarot helps.”

“The Tarot?” he asked. “I’ve used that deck.”

“Oh?” Her interest seemed genuine. “For what purpose?”

“For business, of course. I deal cards for a licensed gambling franchise. Those twenty-two trumps add luster to the game; people like the pictures, and of course there are special prizes.”

“For gambling,” she murmured sadly. “That is all you see in the Tarot?”

“Oh, no. After I’d worked with the cards for a while, I found they were fun for general entertainment, too. There are many games. Sometimes when I’m driving from one stand to another, like now, I put the car on auto and play solitaire.” That established his own cover, for what it was worth. Not much, if they ran an employment check.

“We use them for meditation,” she said. “The contemplation of a single Arcanum, or a group of Arcana, can bring special insights, well worth the effort. I never really understood my purpose in life until I meditated with the guidance of the Tarot. We also study the deck as a whole, analyzing the distinctions between individual cards, and between the concepts of different experts. Whole separate philosophies are revealed, leading to insights on the nature of human thought.”

Paul smiled. “Interesting how one deck can have four different uses,” he observed. “Meditation and study for you, business and entertainment for me. A purpose for every person.”

“True,” she agreed with a small, fetching smile of resignation. “I wish I had my Tarot with me. But the deprogrammers took it away, calling it a crutch.”

Paul did have his deck with him, but decided not to mention that. There was yet another use of the Tarot, he remembered: character reading or divination, and that could be unnervingly accurate. He did not believe in the supernatural (except as it might relate to the limited area of inexplicable runs of luck, good or bad), but he was not about to risk any analysis of his character through the Tarot. Besides that, his prints and sweat were all over that deck; a policewoman could take a sample or sliver from one card and give the laboratory enough to identify him readily. It had been a mistake to give her his name, but he could change that. It was a mistake to keep talking to her; she might be recording his voice through some hidden device. (A bracelet? No, she wore no jewelry. But women had so many secret places…) Regardless, he was getting to like her too well. She might be a religious nut, but there was an odd appeal to her philosophy. That could mean either that this Order of Vision really was a sensible organization, or that this policewoman had done her homework extremely well.

Enough. He had to act—now.

Paul put the car on auto and removed his hands from the wheel. He turned to her, smiling somewhat crookedly. “I guess you know why I picked you up,” he said, forcing a leer. A woman with a body like hers had to have encountered this expression many times before, and had to recognize it instantly.

Sister Beth’s eyes widened. She did not pretend to misunderstand. “Oh, Mr. Cenji, I—I hoped it wouldn’t be that way. You seemed so nice.”

Paul felt like a complete heel. But he had to do it, or she would finish him. He had to play the part of the callous male who had nothing on his mind but sex. This was not really far from the mark; any man near to this girl would react similarly, differing only in the manner he expressed it. He was being purposely crude, and hating it, for if by some freak she was what she claimed to be, a gentle, circuitous approach just might land her. “I
am
nice. Give me a try.”

She shrank back as far as the crashproof seat permitted. Her bosom heaved within the seat’s embrace. “I don’t have the strength to resist you, but at the Order we prefer chastity before marriage.”

Marriage? Hell! He took hold of her arm, drawing her in for a kiss as the seats leveled out in response to his pressure, forming into a bed. Her lips trembled as his own lips touched them. “Please,” she whispered. “Will you let me go? Nothing you could gain for yourself could match what you would take from me. Put me back on the highway; maybe I can get another ride before the police net closes.”

That was exactly what he had wanted: her voluntary departure. It would mean he had fooled her, that she was satisfied he had no serious commitments— such as to mnem. Thus her time would be better spent baiting some other sucker, while that police net hung loose, waiting for her signal.

But now the touch of her aroused him. Disheveled and frightened as she seemed, she remained a compelling figure of a young woman. He could force her; he was sure of that. She might be a policewoman, but he was trained in physical combat himself. A wrist-twist would keep her hand from her weapon, wherever it was, and make her submit without physical struggle. Yes, he could do it…

And she would know him for a mnemdict. It always showed, somehow, in the passion of lovemaking. All addicts and dealers were agreed on that, and he had been spotted himself once that way. The woman in that case had had no intention of turning him in, but she had adamantly refused to enlighten him on what had given him away. “Women have secrets,” she had murmured smugly. Men had them too, but he had never been able to spot another mnemdict. Probably with further experience—but he was drifting from the subject, as he did chronically. If “Sister Beth” were a police fishhook, sex would mean nothing to her; she would be right up on her a-preg, a-veedee, a-allergy shots. She probably intended to seduce him, by her most artful protests, and read the telltale traces then.

“I can drop you off right now,” he said. He put his left hand on her smooth leg where the nightie was hiked up. This was very like the leg he had seen— where? When? But the translucent material made it more exciting than full exposure would have been. The leg was classic, like the rest of her. Suddenly the sexual compulsion was almost overpowering. Maybe it would be
worth
betrayal…

“Please do,” she whispered. He could see the cloth over her bosom shaking with the force of her elevated heartbeat. Of course she protested; that was part of the role. Her excitement could even be genuine because she was on the verge of nailing him. What normal man could resist as delectable a morsel as this, so provocatively packaged and with such an ingenious story? A girl fleeing deprogramming, ready to do anything for a private ride, unable to protest even rape, lest she be erased by the drug. A decent law-abiding citizen would turn her in; a soft-hearted one would give her a ride to her Station. A callous or criminal one would take advantage of her.

Paul was none of these. Not precisely. Now he was about to prove that. He twisted around to touch the STOP key, and the car slowed, picked its way out of the traffic flow, and came to a stop at the roadside. The seats elevated to normal sitting posture and released their clasps. “Goodbye,” Paul said.

Sister Beth looked at him with surprise and something else. “I’m sorry I wasn’t what you expected,” she said, then quickly got out “God bless you, Mr. Cenji.”

God bless you
. Those unfamiliar words struck him with peculiar impact. Even to him, the brutalizer, she gave her prayer. Was she, after all, genuine?

The door closed. Automatically he punched DRIVE, and the car glided forward, still guiding itself. Paul turned in the seat to peer back at her.

Forlorn and lovely, Sister Beth was standing on the gravel shoulder, the wind tugging at her hair and gown. Paul felt a wrenching urge to go back to pick her up again, and to hell with the consequences; there was always the chance she was legitimate.

Then he saw a traffic hoverer descending toward her. The police had spotted her, and might spot
him
if he didn’t lose himself in a hurry. He merged with the flow and sweated it out. Probably she had a homing signal, so her employers could always locate her. He had had a narrow escape.

Yet, unbidden, he repeated her words. “God bless you.” He believed neither in God nor in Sister Beth, but the power of that unexpected benediction had shaken him.

Paul completed the trip uneventfully and delivered the car. He waited in the plush office for his payment—in the form of a boosted credit rating that would gain him unofficial but valuable privileges in a number of legitimate businesses, and of course his renewal supply of mnem, concealed in the hollow tines of his pocket comb. It took the warehouse a little while to unload the car and verify the potency and purity of the stock and make sure no police were tracing the vehicle. As soon as they had satisfied themselves in a businesslike manner about these things, they would settle with him. It was a most professional operation.

In fact, the whole black-market mnem industry was professional—more so than many legitimate enterprises. Paul had gotten into it gradually, his philosophy of life bending in small increments to accommodate the needs of an expanding lifestyle. He had left college with a liberal arts degree, but had found no suitable employment. Clever with his hands, he had used them to do tricks with cards. That had led him into contact with legitimate gambling interests. One of the popular games, not really gambling but more of a warmup for those not ready to take the full plunge, was said to be a medieval revival,
Tarocchi
, using the seventy-eight-card Tarot deck instead of the fifty-three-card standard deck. The Joker of the regular deck had been expanded into twenty-two trumps for the Tarot, basically. He had adapted that deck to other games, partly luck and partly skill. A really sharp memory decreased the former factor and increased the latter, which had led him to mnem. A casino, irritated by his penchant for winning, had attempted to have him summarily bounced. That had been their mistake, for Paul was more nearly professional in his unarmed combat than in his gambling. The casino manager, no dummy, had quickly changed tactics and bought Paul off with a job. Now Paul was well set, so long as he rocked no jetboats.

God bless you
…

The news was on the video outlet. Suddenly an item caught his attention: “A young woman committed suicide last night by flinging herself from a police craft,” the announcer said. “She has been identified as Sister Beth, for the past year a resident at a station of a religious cult, the Holy Order of Vision. Apparently she was depressed over the prospect of drug-assisted deprogramming necessitated by her theft of jewelry…”

“She didn’t steal those jewels!” Paul exclaimed, then caught himself, feeling foolish. A picture flashed on the screen. It was the girl he had picked up, almost exactly as he had seen her last, her translucent nightgown resisting the wind. Even robocameras had a sharp eye for detail, especially when it was associated with something genuinely morbid, such as death.

“She seemed so quiet,” a uniformed police officer was saying apologetically. “I never thought she’d pull a stunt like that, or I’da cuffed her.” He tapped the handcuffs hanging like genitalia at his crotch.

Paul felt disbelief. It
couldn’t
be her; he had seen her only yesterday. She had been a police hooker with a sharp cover. Then he felt anger. How could this have happened? Why hadn’t the police taken proper care of her? But even if they had, she would be just as dead, with her complete memory erased.

Could it be part of the set-up? No, that made no sense; no policewoman would blow her cover by such a newsflash, even a faked death. Her picture would alert her potential victims to the threat. She was too memorable, with that lush body, that innocent face. Man’s dream of heaven! She
had
to be legitimate—> and therefore dead.

Why hadn’t he believed her, believed
in
her, when it had counted? He knew why; he was cynical about the legitimacy of any religious association. He had listened to the incredibly selfish appeals of religious messages: Support Us, Give Us Credit, so that You will go to Heaven and Live Forever in Bliss, Free from Sin. That sort of thing. How anyone could have simultaneous bliss and freedom from sin was a mystery to him.

Yet Sister Beth had seemed different, as though she really believed in the particular salvation she sought. She had not invoked Heaven once. If only he had paid attention to her words as well as to her body!

But if she had really been a Sister, why hadn’t her God protected her? Surely He would have struck some bargain with the authorities. He would have arranged it somehow, fixing it so she would recover. It was only necessary to have faith…

Paul had no faith. He was the cause of her demise. He had attacked her sexually and dumped her back on the roadside. They had been watching for her, and zeroed in rapidly.

If he had only trusted her as she had trusted him. He could so easily have delivered her safely to her Station. There had been too little decency in his recent life. He had been given the opportunity to help a better human being than himself, and instead he had—